into the garage at just a little past seven o’clock. Too fucking eager, I crunched the bumper right into one of Dirk’s bikes standing across the front wall of the garage. That was twice I’d smashed my car in one day – I had never done that before, not even when I was a learner driver. I’d revved myself up too much during the drive home, and by the time the car struck the bike, I was visualising my home-coming scene. I was going to slay. My swishy hair and my practised niceness was going to do it. Show them that Owen could only ever want me. Reality was, as it nearly always is, a let-down. The February heat made my hair – so light and airy and perfect in the aircon of the car – stick onto my neck just from the walk through the garage and into the house. They didn’t even hear me coming. Owen was laughing. Chiara was in the pool facing me and them, her hair wet and dark, a blue bikini wavy under the water. Seeing me seemed to make her shrink into the water, even though I hadn’t even greeted them yet. It was then that Owen turned around.
“Hey, Lily, you’re home,” he said, the last of the laugh in his voice. “I thought you’d be later.” Owen stood up and came over to kiss me as I waited, hovering on the edge of the house, the soles of my sandals thin and curving on the tracks of the sliding door that opened onto the patio. Half in, half out.
“I told Mum I would see her tomorrow.” I waited for Courtney to turn towards me but she seemed suddenly caught up in something her daughter wanted in the pool. She reminded me of someone. I realised that Violet does the same thing. She pretends I am not there until she has no choice and my dad forces her to notice me.
“Sorry, man, I didn’t introduce you properly this morning,” Owen said, seeing my eyes fix past him. He led me to the pool, to my brand-new all-weather loungers, where Courtney sat. Legs stretched out, her back to me, leaning in towards her daughter. Chiara looked up at me and Owen standing next to her mother until Courtney had no choice but to turn to look too. She didn’t get up.
“Courtney, you didn’t properly meet Lily this morning. Lily, this is Courtney,” he said as we stepped awkwardly close to Courtney’s perfect black bikini’d body that would never need muffin freezing. “And that slinky fish over there,” he pointed at the pool with a grin, “is Chiara.” Chiara grinned back. Teeth that needed braces jarred a little in a face that carried the teenage blueprint of a stunning woman. She would be more beautiful than her mother.
Courtney had eyes only for Owen. That’s my Owen! I wanted to shout. Instead, I sucked in my stomach.
“Hi,” I said, sticking my hand out to her. “Welcome to our home.” Lucio’s jazz hands going Fake it till you make it flickered in my head.
“Nice to meet you, Lily. Thanks for letting us crash here, it’s very nice of you. I don’t know what we would’ve done otherwise,” Courtney said, her eyes filling with tears as she scrambled to stand up. I didn’t expect that she would out-nice me. I took the slim tanned hand she offered, long fingers and short pink nails swirling with silvery white curls of nail art. Tiny diamanté accents flashed on her pinkie fingers. No rings, just an armful of silver bangles. Her handshake was a surprise. I was sure it would be floppy, but it was drier than her voice and eyes promised, much harder than what her tears suggested it would be. I wondered what she saw when she looked at me. Softer on the inside than anyone would suspect from the tough nut on the outside, is what Kari says. Were Courtney and I opposites?
“I’ve already sorted them into the guest room,” Owen said. “I was waiting for you so I could organise us some supper?”
“We usually have pizza on a Friday night,” Chiara chipped in before I could answer, dipping her head under the water as her mother started to protest and Owen started to offer to cook something healthier.
“Sure, we can do that,” I answered the loudest. I love pizza but I can’t look at a carb without my bum doing a Kardashian. I don’t remember when last I allowed pizza at home. Owen got a warning look not to out me. My early session with Dean the Machine at gym tomorrow morning would work it off, I told myself.
The hair and the nails and the brand names were supposed to give me a bit of protection, take the edge off. They did nothing. I don’t know why exactly, but Courtney and Chiara and Owen reminded me of being with Dad and Violet and the twins. I blame Violet, but my old therapists said it was normal for me to feel left out in those situations. I’d have to phone one of them to check, but I’m sure it wasn’t normal to feel that way around Owen and Courtney and Chiara. I asked Kari about it when I Facetimed her from the bathroom before bed. She said I was being ridiculous, just like I knew she would. But I felt it anyway, the minute I saw them at the pool. It stayed with me the whole evening, all the way through the pizza and right up to our awkward goodnights. It was like I’d walked into that picture of seaside suburban bliss that Owen sells when he talks about Eden on the Bay and Beach View Estate. They had been so focused on one another. Owen and Courtney side by side on the loungers, Courtney’s bikini inky-black on a perfect tan against the white plastic wicker, Chiara smiling up at them from the water. Ed Sheeran’s ‘Perfect’ (our bloody wedding song I’d already chosen, I could hardly believe it) pumping from a portable speaker I didn’t recognise. Wine glasses in Owen and Courtney’s hands and a nearly empty bottle in the ice bucket on the little table next to them. From that minute, I couldn’t shake the feeling of being on the outside of something. Mom, dad, kid. What if Owen liked the idea of having a kid, a family?
Something had changed. I wasn’t sure what yet, but I felt it even when Owen hugged me tight in bed.
“Thanks for letting them stay, babe. I know it’s hard but I appreciate it. You are being very kind.” Already it was me and him and them, him speaking for them, me on the outside. Four weeks to our wedding and Friday was no Fri-Yay. A pit in my stomach, stuffed full of pizza, churned as I fell asleep.
Four Weeks to the Wedding
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
It all starts to go pear-shaped, just like my ass.
PLUS. Proof that no good story starts with
“When I was at the gym …”
In other words, roses are red, Owen’s eye is blue. I wish I was sweet, whoop de bloody do. #VeryPerfectlyPearShaped
7
“Oh,” I wanted to slink back into our room, “hi …” I didn’t have my fucking face on yet. All I wanted was a coffee so I could be caffed up for Dean the Machine. My personal trainer was on an incentive bonus to help me shift four more kilos before the wedding. I’d promised him three grand a kilo. With four weeks left, he was seriously motivated, but kept hinting that I sabotaged him with my gin-and-tonic intake.
“Would you like a coffee? I couldn’t work the fancy big machine but I found a little Nespresso machine and pods in the other room. I love the caramel ones – I’ve had a double already.”
She’d been in my room. While I was sleeping upstairs in my bed, she had been in my things. All in the tiniest white tank-top with short pink sleep-pants.
“Uh, no, thanks. Owen is the coffee maker, so he normally works the machine and brings me a cup. I just have to switch it on.”
“That’s nice – I don’t remember him waking up early on weekends! I used to be alone in the mornings while he slept until ten.”
“Oh.” He was a stupid teenager then, I thought. He’s a grown man now, he never sleeps past nine. I would’ve
